JEE: Tips and Tricks

Do you want to ace JEE with great confidence and marks?
Is the feeling of awaiting the nearing date of JEE pestering you?
Is JEE Advanced being online making you uncomfortable?
Is your self confidence going down even after preparing a lot?
Do you want some tricks/hacks and tips about the subject and exam?

As, we know JEE 2018 is nearing and JEE Main and JEE Advanced dates are released officially with JEE Main for offline mode to be held on 8th april 2018 and online one to be held after 1 week of offline one. JEE Advanced is to be held on 20th may 2018. First time in the history of IIT-JEE the Advanced paper is to be conducted fully in online mode, though Main is still left to be in option with offline. This online JEE Advanced news has become one of the headaches for the students preparing for JEE 2018, and the major of all the droppers who have decided to give JEE 2018 again after not getting pleased or satisfied with JEE 2017 results. Many students have prepared with full vigor and diligence for this exam but as the date is nearing many of them are suffering with anxiety issues with the thought of giving the exam for which they have prepared for 2 years. For all the students reading this, it is all normal and is all part of being able to do good in the exam because the nervousness is the sign that you want to do fair and square in the examination.

I myself have given JEE once and have got pretty decent marks but I was not very much happy with my results, but let's save this story for some another time. While preparing at my home and in my coaching center I devised, found and was told about many tricks and tips to crack various types of questions with maximum accuracy. I would be discussing all those I can remember in three different sections according to the subjects Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. These all tricks work very efficiently in the type of questions told and even if the options are messed up they help to eliminate most of the wrong ones. Remember though, there is no trick to crack JEE without working hard, these tricks only help those who do remember solving the questions with longer methods or those who do remember the concepts. They may even aid you to cram some rote topics and ease them for you. But as I said there is no substitute to hard work. I'll be adding more as I remember so check once a time.  Also if you want some motivation you may refer another post of mine Living vs Dreaming. It's link can be found below. I used the following books to aid me and they worked wonders in giving final touches and revising something or practicing questions. You may but these from here at a discount:
Books I used
New version of a book I used
For great aid in Physics
Aid in Mathematics
A complete package

All the engineering exams in India have objective, multiple choice questions (MCQs) with four answers to choose from. You have to just circle the correct bubble. 
Nobody cares how you do it – whether you actually understand concepts, cheat your way through the exam or just guess the answers. If they turn out to be correct nobody gives it a damn!
In JEE Main, JEE Advanced and BITSAT, there is a devil called Negative Marking to discourage blind guessing. But sensible guessing can help you get the best of it.If you don’t know the correct answer, sensible guessing can help you eliminate all the wrong answers and gain marks.Believe it or not, in all major exams, answers are equally distributed among all the four options: a, b, c and d. It means that 25% of answers have to be ‘a’, 25% will be ‘b’, 25% will be ‘c’ and 25% will be ‘d’.
This is done to make sure that students do not get marks merely because of probability. Marking scheme of the exam gives you +3 marks for all correct answers and -1 mark for all incorrect answers.It means that if you only mark ‘a’ for all the questions – you will have at least 25% correct answers. Rest of the 75% answers will be incorrect. Hence, going by the formula below, you will get ‘zero’ marks in the exam. [(X/4) x (3)] – [(3X/4) x (-1)] =0It means if you solve 100 questions, you will get (100/4) = 25 answers correct. Multiply it by 3 and you will get 75 marks. But now, ¾ of your answers will be incorrect, which will fetch you 75 penalty marks. Deducting one mark for each incorrect answer will mean that you lose 75 marks. The net difference will be Zero



Let's start the things with Physics. This is one of the most dreaded section especially in JEE Advanced and many students find this very difficult. But Physics was my second most favorite section and Physics is not at all hard for anyone who can imagine or who understands the concepts of the questions and theory. Physics is all based upon the concepts and the laws you all read in your books. Some tricks for Physics section are:

• Dimensions:

  This is one of the easiest and most used trick for Physics. Dimension analysis can work wonders for you to eliminate all the wrong answers. For example, if you are asked to find current without giving any values, you may check all the options whose dimensions are same as that of current and hopefully you can eliminate all or most of the wrong options.
  
   

•  Putting Values to Narrow Down your Options  

  
   Use this trick for questions wherein you have to find general expressions for certain scenarios.Let’s take an easy example. You have to find the expression for Pressure on a Bubble of Radius R in a container situated at H height from the ground level. The water in the container is up to height L.
  Your options are:
  
  (a)    P + [pg (L-h)/LR]
  (b)   P + [pg LR/(L-h)]
  (c)    P + [pg R (L-h)/L]
  (d)   P + [pg (L-h)(L-R)/L)
  The dimensional analysis will tell you that the first option is not correct. Similarly, the second option too gives you a dimension of Pressure per Unit Area and not just Pressure.Now, we only have third and fourth options in hand.We know that the Pressure on the surface of water must be P and (P + pg L) at the base of the container.At the surface of water, h = L and Pressure = P. At the base of the container, h = 0 and Pressure = (P + pg L). Put these two values in the equations and you will find the correct answer – (d) in this case.

• Create mnemonics of your own to help you remember:   

The formulae and remembering them sometimes make a very tedious work to do. Sometimes  these things just bore and don't seem meaningful, don't they? But they are not, formulae are some of those major aids that take you out of a very hard question and give you marks. Some questions are solely based on formulae that seem hard to remember, but the question is direct so whoever remembers the formula gets the marks and other can't. Creating Mnemonics  help a lot in remembering them, making your own adds a cherry to its top as you would not be forgetting it ever. For example V=IR can be remembered as Vir(brave in Hindi)

        

Moving to Chemistry, mostly everyone has problems with remembering the rote topics like Chemistry in Everyday Life, Polymers, Bio molecules. Also sometimes struggling with inorganic is very hard. You are at the right place if you are trying to learn how to rote them. I have given mnemonics of my own, you may make your own to get them on your tips fast.

s-block elements

• Group 1 / Alkali Metals

Lina Ke Rab Se Fariyad.
Elements: Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs, Fr

• Group 2 / Alkaline Earth Metals

Beta Mange Cars Scooter Baap Roye.
Elements: Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba, Ra

---

p-block elements

• Group 13/ Boron Group

Bal Gangadhar Indian Tilak
Elements: B, Al, Ga, In, Tl

• Group 14 / Carbon Group

Casi Gaye Sant Prabhu
Elements: C, Si, Ge, Sn, Pb

• Group 15 / Nitrogen Group

No Problem As Sab Bhai
Elements: N, P, As, Sb, Bi

• Group 16/Oxygen Group

Os Se Tepo.
Elements: O, S, Se, Te, Po

• Group 17/ Halogens

F Cl Br I At
Elements: F, Cl, Br, I, At

• Group 18/ Noble Gases

He NeAr Kar Xerox Run
Elements: He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe, Rn

---

Transition Elements

Sachin Tendulkar Vishesh Cricket Man FeCo Ni Copper Zinc
Elements: Sc, T, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn

---

Some Chemistry Laws:

        Many laws prove hard to be recalled, some of them in which I used to struggle are:

• BT: Say it BAT as Boyle's and Temperature which means temperature remains constant according to Boyle's law.
• PC: Everyone remembers PC, don't you? ;-) Here P is pressure and C is for Charles. Pressure remains constant in Charles law.
• GAV: Say it GAV(village in Hindi) Gay Lussac's law where Volume is constant.

Moving to Mathematics. This was my favorite subject and I used to fetch the most out of this section in JEE, though making a subject favorite should not be preferred as it creates disinterest in other subjects which may affect the overall marks and rank.

• Diagrams for Co-ordinate Geometry:

  Even if you don’t thoroughly understand a concept, drawing an approximate diagram according to the given scale can help you work out the radius, area, equations etc. easily. It might seem like a trivia but it really works in many cases.
   

• Domain and Range of a Function:

  Questions related to finding domain of a function in IIT JEE are usually asked as below:
  If x = {0, 1, 2, 3, 4}, y = {2, 3, 4, 5} and x  X, y    Y, then which of the following is a function in the given set -
  (a) f₁ = {(x,y) : y = x + 1}
  (b) f₂ = {(x,y) : x + y = >5}
  (c) f₃ = {(x,y) : y ≤ x}
  (d) None of these
  In such questions, you do not have to solve the entire function.
  Just put in the extreme values of the set in the function and see if they satisfy the answer. In this question, you can put 0 and 4 for x and 2 and 5 for y. You will be able to get the correct answer – (d) in this case.
   

•  Integration questions:

Integration questions are one of the major section in JEE exams. Definite integration, Indefinite integration,  Area all topics have significant amount of questions. For integration you may check the option whose differentiation is written in the question if the integration proves to be very difficult.

 

• Generalize Questions: These are the favorite questions of JEE administrators. They have complex orientation and you will have to find one of the variables.Just assume that two or more of the arbitrary values are zero, one or some other easy value and check your options again.
  Here’s an example:
  For positive real values, it is given that m³x⁴ = n³y⁴ and m² < n², then
  (a)    m³x² > n³y²
  (b)   m³ < y⁴
  (c)    m³x² < n³y²
  (d)   m³ > y⁴
  Solving these will lead you to the hot soup of inequalities.
  Hence, here’s an alternative. Assume some easy values for m, x, and n. Let’s say, m = 2, n = 3, and x = 3. You will get y as the fourth root of 24. Approximate it as the square root of 5 (since 5 is the square root of 25). Hence, it can be roughly calculated to be 2.2.
  For such questions, approximating values is a good idea.
  Put these values in the equation. Cancel out ‘3’ wherever possible and you will soon find the correct answer as (b).
  In questions where you get random inclinations of a plane (alpha, beta or whatever), check what will happen if the inclination is zero/90. Put zero or 90 as the value of the plan and see which of the answers satisfy the condition.

 

• Finding out n-terms in Mathematics:

  Perhaps the easiest questions in Mathematics, these either ask for the n^th term or the sum or product of n-terms. The value of ‘n’ is mostly 1, 2 or at the most 3. Simply, put in these values and check whether they fit in.
  If you have tried up to ‘3’ and you still do not have the answer, leave it alone. It is most likely to be a high-level question.
  Here’s an example for you:
  The sum of n natural numbers (1+2+3+….+n) is:
  (a) n (n-1)/2
  (b) n (n+1)/2
  (c) n (n+2)/3
  (d) (n+1) (n-1)
  Sum of 1 as a natural number should be 1 too.
  Put 1 as the value of n. Solving the equations you will get 0 for (a), 1 for (b), 1 for (c) and 0 for (d). Hence, we can rule out (a) and (d).
  Now we put 2 as the value of n. Solving (b) equation, we get 3 as the answer while (c) equation dissolves into 8/3, which is not a natural number. Hence, the correct answer is (b).
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Some Bonus tips:

• Whenever you feel bored or drained out listen to your favorite songs with headphones and totally enjoy the feeling of happiness and suck it all in your mind. Personally my list of songs used to be the following(also they are highly recommended by me)  
• OneRepublic, Counting Stars
• Imagine Dragons, Radioactive
• Imagine Dragons, Demons
• OneRepublic, I lived
• American Authors, Best Day of My Life
• American Authors, Go Big or Go Home
• Imagine Dragons, Unknown

                                                             

• Always be confident, leave the tension of result and be carefree. If you have worked hard you will succeed and nobody can stop you. Be Confident and Rock the world.

• 
  
  
• 
  
             ALL THE VERY BEST....!!